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Drizzle doesn’t dampen hope for new center
Katie Dean — 9/10/2007 12:39 pm

Despite the soggy weather this morning, the mood was festive at the site of the future Lussier Community Education Center on the far west side.

That’s where Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton, state Sen. Fred Risser, Madison Superintendent of Schools Art Rainwater and 80 or so other community leaders, educators, neighbors and kids gathered to break ground for the new building.

The center will be built next to Jefferson Middle School on Gammon Road and will replace, and expand the reach, of the current Wexford Ridge Neighborhood Center. The aging center now operates out of three modified apartments across the street from the school. The new center is scheduled to open in June 2008.

“The Lussier Community Education Center will be a place for youth and grown-ups to meet and learn from each other, by sharing knowledge, experiences and cultures,” said John H. “Jack” Lussier, chairman of the board of The Capital Times Co. and president of The Evjue Foundation. “Sharing is the key word.”

Lussier is the primary donor to the project, with a gift of $600,000, while The Evjue Foundation has given $150,000.

Lawton and Rainwater congratulated the group for coming together to make the new center possible. Then, along with a group of project supporters that included Lussier and Risser as well as about eight youngsters, the group dug into the ground with their ceremonial shovels.

Those who came out to celebrate the groundbreaking had crowded under a tent to escape the drizzle, but outside the tent, stakes marked out where the new rooms of the building would be located. The 12,000-square foot center will include a recording studio and sound booth, a youth and teen room, a kitchen, food pantry, and large community room.

Paul Terranova, executive director of the center, said he could already envision the diverse activities that would go on in the space: a toddler playgroup, parents planning a neighborhood party, kids reading poetry, candidate debates and author readings. The center will include a kitchen where seniors can get a hot meal, and a place for Women Rise Up!, a group of low-income women working together for positive change in the community to meet, as well as a the Parkwood Hills garden club to gather.

“People can cross paths and come to know each other and work together in a way that doesn’t happen very often,” he said.

The new location next to the school will help bring academic resources from the school and build academic achievement, Terranova said.

He said he’s been “continually impressed and amazed” at the support the new center has received, despite the obstacles.

“This is a dream this community has decided it will achieve,” Terranova said.

“It’s been a marvelous experience of the community coming together,” said Betty Harris Custer, chair of the LCEC capital campaign, noting that the support of businesses, the school district, city and churches are all helping to make the center possible.

Custer said the group has raised about $3 million toward its goal of $4.5 million.

She said the current center “is hard to find. Now we’re actually going to have this very visible center on these grounds.”

“It isn’t just serving Wexford Ridge. The scope is much broader,” she said.

At the groundbreaking, Madison Gas and Electric CEO and chairman Gary Wolter announced that the company would install a closed-loop geothermal heat pump system to provide heat and air conditioning. It will save about 30 percent on heating and cooling costs, Wolter said.

A fifth-grader at John Muir Elementary School named Tai’tiana, who attended the groundbreaking, said she plans to “help people and try to play with them and don’t leave people out” when the center opens.
kdean@madison.com

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